Comment by jader201 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jader201 | Hacker News Reader

Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place and more people (supposedly?) wearing masks vs. in previous waves where the spread and deaths seem lower than now?

This is especially baffling considering how much more prepared we are (or should be?) and how much more we (should) know about the virus now vs. before.

It seems like one or more of the following is happening:

- Actually fewer people are wearing masks, or are wearing them less vs. previously

- Even though lockdown mandates/recommendations are increasing, they’re not being followed/enforced as much

- Masks aren’t as effective as we think

- It’s spreading in other ways that we’re unaware of

I’d love an ELI5 of why we’re continuing to see record numbers of positive test rates + deaths + hospitalizations, in spite of (again, supposedly) more diligence with masks and lockdowns.

To be clear, I’m a strong believer in wearing masks and staying home (I almost never leave my house, and when I do, I’m wearing a mask), but it’s baffling and a bit frustrating to see the numbers continue to rise without anyone seeming to have answers as to why.

I have no credentials or scientific evidence, but I never questioned the rising cases with each wave since I assume its just a property of the exponential nature of the virus spread: in march, say you had 5 people unknowingly carrying corona-virus arrive in your city and each of them spreads it to 5 more people in a two week period, your outbreak is 50 people (seems small now). But now in December, your city has about 350 people spreading the virus but only to 1.5 close contacts in a two week period, you'd expect the next outbreak to be 500 people.

I think hospitalizations are still a somewhat consistent percentage of cases, and will increase as the number of cases go up.

> Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place

Anthony Fauci summed this up pretty well a few days ago in a press release. He basically said that the USA is really bad at following rules, which we are, and that with the recent holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving) and because of the cold weather (people stay indoors more, share the same air, air being recycled and heated in HVAC systems to reduce energy consumption), that numbers would rise. And so they are. I think these human explanations are the main source of the rise in numbers.

Another interesting one was in a WHO release a few weeks ago, that people seem to be experiencing "mask fatigue", or what is more generally known as "caution fatigue", where people, after having to be cautious for a long time, and not experiencing the source of that caution personally, just lose their ability to pay attention to the problem. It's the same reason the TSA inserts fake firearm pictures into the x-rays of luggage, and the same reason the military regularly inspects guard posts in key locations.

It got cold outside. The curves match other respiratory viruses - or put another way, it's flu season.

This was one of the running theories back in the spring, but it was hard to tell for sure until seeing it spike back up this fall exactly as one would expect if this were the case.

> - Masks aren’t as effective as we think

Also this, I think - masks are good at catching droplets from talking or coughing, but sometime between summer and now it's suddenly become commonly known that this virus can hang in the air for an extended period indoors when there isn't good ventilation - being truly airborne like that means it can just slip around the edges of the mask as you breathe. Even disregarding that it was known back in March that fabric masks only reduced the amount of virus that could get through the mask, it didn't actually completely stop the virus as people nowadays seem to want to believe.

It's hard. Few of the later measures taken against coronavirus are grounded in very strong scientific evidence. It isn't easy conducting randomized trails in an ongoing pandemic.

What you see practiced in hospital and intensive care units is what works.

The rest have spotty evidence at best. Hopefully something good will come out of this and we will see more research on public health. Look at the recent Danish on general public face mask use as a good example.

> in spite of more lockdowns in place

I've been to about 20 states during this pandemic and I have never seen lock-downs strictly enforced... and I don't blame them.

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